


my cowardice (and your bad timing).

by katarama



Series: Salem Academy of Sorcery [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, M/M, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 17:48:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4885996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katarama/pseuds/katarama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the first time Stiles meets Derek, he knows he doesn’t like him.</p>
<p>No.  Doesn’t like is an understatement.  Stiles sees him across the room, sitting in Stiles’ spot at their table in magizoology.  He has dark, swooping hair and a grin that takes up half his face, and his shoulders are way broader than they have any right to be for a first year.  He’s wearing plaid and has the bushiest eyebrows and very pink lips, and Stiles immediately hates him.  It has nothing to do with the fact that he’s sitting next to Scott, that he’s got his arm pressed against Scott’s.  Or the fact that Scott is smiling at him, grinning just as widely as Derek is.</p>
<p>Stiles hates Derek, and jealousy has nothing to do with it.</p>
<p>(American wizarding school AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	my cowardice (and your bad timing).

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shift (clarz)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clarz/gifts).



> This is a 'verse that is near and dear to my heart. It started out as an American Hogwarts designed by [rjosettes](archiveofourown.org/users/rjosettes/pseuds/rjosettes) and I a number of years ago, but it has taken on a life of its own. When I heard that our friend Clara was into American Hogwarts Teen Wolf AUs, it hit me that we could put the Teen Wolf characters in this world, and Ells and I got excited.
> 
> So this is going to be part one in a collection by Ells and I. It's leading towards poly pack, and this is just the first installment, to give everyone an idea of the universe. Enjoy!

From the first time Stiles meets Derek, he knows he doesn’t like him.

No.  Doesn’t like is an understatement.  Stiles sees him across the room, sitting in Stiles’ spot at their table in magizoology.  He has dark, swooping hair and a grin that takes up half his face, and his shoulders are way broader than they have any right to be for a first year.  He’s wearing plaid and has the bushiest eyebrows and very pink lips, and Stiles immediately hates him.

It has nothing to do with the fact that he’s sitting next to Scott, that he’s got his arm pressed against Scott’s.  Or the fact that Scott is  _smiling_  at him, grinning just as widely as Derek is.  They’re looking at a book, and both of them are staring at a page that’s way too near the middle of the book for it being the end of the first month of school.  

Stiles’ feelings are totally justified.  His magic just does that, sometimes, tells him when someone’s bad news, it’s an  _endowment_ , he’s been told.  Never mind the fact that it doesn’t feel at all the way it did when he met Matt, a tightness in his gut and bells going off in his head when all Matt did was sit down next to him.  And it’s nothing like the way his magic squeezed tight around him in warning when he saw Theo sitting with his friends in the common room of his dorm.  Theo’s in the same house as him, Eberhardt, the winter house.  Known for wisdom and intuition, for icy indifference and hidden intent.  Stiles is an open book, but he knows Theo isn’t.  He can feel it just being in the same room.

Derek isn’t anything like Theo.  He’s a Meriwether, the fall house.  Persistent and diligent and self-disciplined.  Boring, in other words, in Stiles’ opinion.  Not in Scott’s, though, apparently, because he’s staring at Derek like he just said the most interesting thing in the world.  Scott would.  Scott’s Burkenshire, the summer house, and it’s all about justice and fairness and the underdog and all.  Giving people the benefit of the doubt, even when they don’t deserve it, because they’re the star quodpot player and popular and have frustratingly good hair and Stiles has a bad feeling about them.

But Derek’s a magizoology geek, too, just like Scott, apparently, and Derek has the advantage of having grown up deeply embedded in the magical world, so he knows more than what’s in the book.  He has werewolves in the family and gets passionate talking about wolfsbane substitutes, whatever that means, so Derek gets to take Stiles’ chair, leaving Stiles sitting next to Isaac Lahey.

It’s easy for Stiles to be bitter towards Derek.  As far as he can tell, he’s got everything; he’s known about his magic all his life, so he has a better handle on it than people like Stiles, with two totally magic-free parents and no clue that the reason things he wanted appeared in his cubby at school without him taking them was because of his overactive magic.  Derek has a ton of friends already, even though school’s barely started, because he knew how to play Quodpot and his sister Laura was on the team.  Stiles didn’t even know what Quodpot  _was_ , and when Scott started out his explanation with, “It’s like Quidditch, but…” Stiles was already lost.

Scott’s mom has magic, but Scott himself doesn’t have a lot of it.  Definitely not as much as Stiles, who apparently has it spilling from his pores, and ADHD fucking up the focus he needs to learn how to control and direct it.  Not that anyone thought to warn him about it, or anything.  No, he had to wait until middle school, when he got a neat little letter in the mail with its neat little logo on the envelope and no return address.  

It fucked up his social life, all through grade school, and fucked things up with his dad even worse.  There are only so many times a teacher’s gonna believe that he doesn’t know how the test answer sheet got inside his desk, or that he has no idea how he ended up on the roof of the building instead of his P.E. class.  The first time Stiles gets distracted and accidentally explodes his fifth grade science teacher’s demo, everyone thinks it’s hilarious.  The fifth time, everyone’s annoyed, especially when Stiles can’t keep his mouth shut about how if the experiments were actually interesting, it probably wouldn’t be happening.

It also doesn’t help that Stiles is picky when it comes to his friends, and that the few people who wanted to hang out with the kid that blew shit up were the ones he had no interest in being friends with.  

So he was excited when he got to Salem Academy of Sorcery.  He was even more pumped when he met Scott McCall at the first GSA meeting of the year.  Stiles was hiding at the snack table, name tag haphazardly stuck to his shirt, the edges already peeling off.  Scott had come up to grab a cookie, and had lingered, floppy hair curling around his ears, brown eyes fixed on Stiles’ name tag.   _Stiles, Bisexual_ , it reads.

_Scott, Questioning_ , Scott’s says, a thick line drawn through the “questioning”,  _Probably Pansexual_  written in tiny letters, squeezed in at the bottom of the tag.  Other people, older students, crack jokes on their tags (“Tom Hardy-Sexual”), but Scott’s looks like he thought hard about it.  While that reeks of a little bit too much earnestness for Stiles’ tastes, he can’t help but be charmed when Scott sticks out a hand, sticky with cookie crumbs, for Stiles to shake.

“First year?” Scott asks, and Stiles says yes and prepares to be offended, to ask why everyone just assumes he’s new.  Scott doesn’t let him.  “Me too,” Scott admits before Stiles can work himself up.  “It’s nice to have someone else new around, all the older kids are all friends already.”

It’s an easy excuse for why Stiles is hiding, much better than, ‘Yeah, I’m painfully awkward and intimidated being in this room full of strangers who know what’s going on while I don’t.’  So Stiles runs with it, and he ends up talking to Scott until the formal part of the meeting starts.

“We should hang out,” Scott says afterwards.  They exchange numbers, and Stiles is ecstatic.  He’s made a friend; one who isn’t in his house and who apparently only shares two classes with him, both of which are classes Stiles hates, but still a friend, someone who can sit with him in the caf and complain about Harris.  

Stiles is thrilled, especially when he and Scott end up Close, the kind of friendship that Stiles always wanted.  They spend half their time in each other’s rooms, which Stiles is stunned his roommate allows.  But it turns out that even Danny can’t help but like Scott, way better than he likes Stiles, which is just.  Really unfair, okay.  

Stiles is starting to realize it is a common theme, though.  Danny likes Scott better, Isaac likes Scott better, Boyd likes Scott better…

And now there’s Derek, who has yet to acknowledge Stiles’ existence (aside from occasional, furtive glances while he’s hanging out with Scott) but apparently considers himself Scott’s new best friend.  He cuts away from his group of jock friends at lunch, which Stiles considers Scott and Stiles Time, an unbreakable bond created over food, and intercepts Scott at the drinks section, getting Scott engaged talking about (as Scott informs him later, eyes bright) fucking unicorns.

Stiles dislikes Isaac.  Stiles distrusts Theo.  But Stiles hates Derek, and jealousy has nothing to do with it.

* * *

 

“You’re green, dude,” Danny says to Stiles.  Stiles is fuming just a little bit.  Only the tiniest little bit.  He could be much angrier, considering the circumstances, but it’s Scott, and it’s, like.  Impossible for him to stay mad at Scott, he’s already figured out.  Derek, though, it’s easy to be mad at.  He’s a dirty rotten friend stealer.  Stiles won’t go as far as to say that it’s Derek’s fault he’s bi, because Stiles isn’t about that ‘your sexuality is a choice and being gay is something you can just choose not to do’ bullshit.  But he  _can_  blame Derek for telling Scott he was bi along with a puppy-dog-eyed, painfully earnest admission that he hadn’t always had the best experiences with gay communities.

“The GSA here is  _great_ ,” Scott said, wide-eyed and enthusiastic.  “Stiles and I go to all the meetings together, and sometimes Danny comes along, too, and we haven’t come across any biphobia at  _all_ , it’s been great.  They’re having a mixer on Saturday, Stiles and I are pregaming with some of the older kids.  I’m sure you’re welcome, they invited pretty much everyone.”

“I don’t drink,” Derek admits, which Stiles doesn’t expect.  Derek is widely considered a jock, and he thought that came with the territory.  Underage drinking and partying and all.

“That’s great!” Scott says, excited.  “Neither do I, and Stiles doesn’t really either, though he sometimes says he does because he thinks it makes him seem cooler.  It’s why we’re sticking together the whole night.  I’m his bad decision radar, because he sometimes does things without thinking.  They said they’ll have mixers and mocktails and stuff there for the younger students, so we can grab cokes and be fine.”

Derek looks relieved, and he does That Smile at Scott, again, the one Stiles is really starting to hate.  He looks half in love with Scott, and Scott doesn’t seem to mind, glowing under Derek’s happy expression.

No one asks Stiles’ opinion about whether Derek should go with them.  No one cares, because Scott and Derek are friends, and Scott assumes that means Stiles is chill with Derek, too, and that Stiles is trying to be funny when he grouses and says he doesn’t like Derek.  Stiles  _really_  wishes that someone would’ve asked him, because the day before, Scott gets sick and winds up with firm instructions from the school nurse that he shouldn’t be going to class, let alone to any GSA events.

“youll take derek with you, right?” Scott sends Stiles, and Stiles wants to scream.  He didn’t sign up for this.  He’s pretty sure Derek doesn’t even want to go badly enough that he’ll tag along with Stiles.  Stiles is pretty sure that the whole thing was a plot to get closer to Scott.

“fine,” he texts back, thinking that’ll be the end of it.  He’s wrong, though.  That day, in magizoology, Derek sits next to him instead, looking at Stiles with his obnoxious eyes and talking at Stiles with his obnoxious mouth.

“Thanks for offering to take me, still,” Derek says.  His tone is almost shy, and Stiles wants to be pissed at him, but Derek looks awkward and almost  _nervous_ , and Stiles can’t lash out at that expression.  “Scott said you didn’t mind.”

“It’s fine,” Stiles says.  Not ‘I don’t mind’, but not exactly a lie.  “Pregaming’s in your dorm, up on the fifth floor, so I’ll meet you at your room if you tell me which it is.”

“Meriwether 130,” Derek says, and that’s that.  Class starts up, but Derek stays in the seat next to Stiles.  They don’t talk at all, and aside from an awkward wave at the end of class, there’s no other real interaction.  Stiles leaves feeling unsettled, more than anything.

He figures he can bring Derek to pregame and they’ll get separated.  Derek has enough friends that Stiles won’t be forced to spend the whole night with him.  He can go and find Erica and Boyd and ride out his buzz with them, dancing with Erica and letting her rope Boyd in, too.

The way things actually go is very, very much not how he expects.

He picks Derek up at 8:35 instead of 8:30, but Derek doesn’t seem upset by it.  He’s dressed in something that isn’t plaid, for once, which is a little bit of a relief to Stiles, because otherwise it would look like they were matching.  It means he has to look at Derek in a shirt that is slightly too tight for his frame, which may or may not lead to Stiles making a crack about them being somewhere ambiguously in Virginia and not heading to a New York club.  He thinks it’s a dick move, that it’ll establish right from the get-go that he’s not there to be Derek’s replacement best friend for the night.  Instead, Derek grins.

“At least I’m in the right time period,” Derek says, giving Stiles a lingering once-over that does not at all make Stiles’ stomach swoop.  “You look like you got lost in 1990s Seattle.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Stiles says, but it pulls a smile out of him, and Derek laughs.  The good mood lingers until they’re up to the fifth floor, magical soundproofing only letting noise leak into the hallway when doors open for students to pass from one of the rooms set aside for pregaming to the next.

It’s loud, voices and music, and the whole hallway smells of alcohol.  The room Stiles and Derek filter into is full of people, most of them strangers.  Stiles feels intensely anxious, wants to change his mind and turn around and go back.  He remembers why he wanted Scott along in the first place, starts remembering very, very intensely that Scott is his only real friend and that he has no idea how to handle these sorts of social situations without Scott there to fumble through them with him.  The door slams shut behind him, and it makes him feel claustrophobic and trapped.  They’re in, and it’s too late to go back.

“Hey,” Derek says, reaching out to rest a hand on Stiles’ shoulder.  Stiles looks at his arm, just below where Derek’s touching, and notices it’s going a little bit translucent.  He flushes hot, embarrassed, and forces his magic calm.  He may not be able to calm his anxiety, but keeping his magic at bay gives him something to focus on that isn’t how out of place he feels.

“Sorry,” Stiles says awkwardly.  “Unpredictable magic, you know how that goes.”

“Yeah,” Derek says, to Stiles’ surprise.  He figured that wasn’t something Derek would understand, having a magical family, expected Derek to make a comment about how, nope, he doesn’t understand that, his magic is as frustratingly perfect as the rest of him.  Derek seems genuinely empathetic, though, and Stiles is grateful when Derek tugs him by the hand to the desk where the drinks are set up, totally unattended.  Stiles mixes himself a cup of cranberry juice and sprite, ignoring the bewildered look Derek gives him when he snags a small lime wedge and squeezes it in.  Derek grabs a coke, and they start looking for a place to sit when a loud voice calls out over the noise.

“Hale,” Jackson shouts, looking every bit the douche he is wearing exclusively Eberhardt colors.  He’s a legacy, his parents a recent but well-known fixture in the magical world.  According to him.  Not nearly as big of a deal as the Hales or as frequently whispered about as the Argents, Scott had informed him.  Definitely looking to get in with Derek for precisely that reason, and helped by the fact that Jackson was the only other first year to make a Quodpot team.

Stiles hates Jackson even more than he hates Derek, because Jackson’s in his house and friends with Danny, so Stiles is forced to actually interact with Jackson.  Plus, Jackson is a dick to Scott, which should be illegal.

Derek leads them right over to Jackson, though, of course, and Stiles ends up squeezed between two of the people who make him angriest on a regular basis.

So when Jackson goads him into two shots to start off the night and a drunk-poured vodka coke while he’s still riding off his buzz, it’s just as much to survive only knowing Derek and Jackson and Danny as it is because Jackson turned it into a challenge.

Stiles has never been drunk before, because Stiles is the epitome of being all talk.  The feeling’s nice, at first, everything going hazy and slow, losing sense of exactly how much time is passed.  He knows it’s not time for the GSA event yet, because everyone’s still in the room, but he’s not too worried about it.  Derek knows when the event is, and he is still sober, frighteningly so, looking at Stiles with concerned eyes that make Stiles angry.  Stiles doesn’t need Derek’s concerned eyes, because Stiles isn’t that drunk, and when Derek looks at Stiles it forces Stiles to think about Derek’s eyes in the first place, which is a problem, okay?  Stiles wants to hate Derek a lot for taking Scott from him, and when Derek has eyes in Stiles’ general direction and puts his hand on Stiles’ shoulder, trying to keep him from swaying drunkenly, Stiles can understand for a second or two why it makes Scott so happy.

“You shouldn’t make Scott happy,” Stiles tells Derek seriously.  “That’s my job.  But you can’t make him sad, either, because then I have to hurt you, like Jackson.  And no one should be like Jackson, especially you, because your face is prettier than his, and I like you better.”

Stiles wants to text Scott, because he’s thinking about him now.  He misses Scott.  Scott should be there with him.  But Derek’s eyebrows furrow even more, and Stiles wants to touch them, to see if they’re as soft and hairy as they look.  Derek is giving him the concerned eyes again, though, so Stiles doesn’t think he would appreciate it very much.  “Do you want some water?” Derek asks Stiles.  “I can go grab you some water from the bathroom.”

“He doesn’t want water, he wants to bang you,” Jackson says loudly, and Stiles snorts.  He still wants to hit Jackson, but Jackson is right.  Derek is also probably right, though.  Stiles is pretty sure that water is a good idea.  Derek seems surprised by Jackson’s answer, though, his mouth dropping open so Stiles gets a nice view of his lips.

“You can get me water if you kiss me,” Stiles decides.  “And if you hit Jackson so I don’t have to move my arms.”

Derek looks more flustered than Stiles has ever seen him, his big, stick-outy ears going red.  Stiles wants to lick them, a little bit, or maybe bite the earlobes.  He’s heard that feels good, though he hasn’t ever had anyone to bite his ears for him.  He’s considering adding that to his list of demands when Danny shoves a cup of water into his hands.

“Take him home,” Danny tells Derek firmly.  “He won’t get in the door at the GSA party this drunk, anyway.  It’s Eberhardt 112, you can just skip him in.  I’m not planning on going back to the room tonight, so if you want to crash there, you’re welcome to.  Just don’t take advantage of him, or I’ll have to get Scott involved.”

“I would never,” Derek says seriously, and Danny nods.  “Lots of water then, Stiles,” Danny says, “and no puking in your bed.”

Derek helps Stiles to his feet, a bit of the water sloshing out of the cup and onto Stiles’ shirt.  He doesn’t seem to notice, pressing himself against Derek, loose-limbed and flushed.  Derek gets Stiles back his own dorm in one piece, sitting him down on his bed and shoving water at him.  He has to take Stiles’ phone away from him because it keeps showing up in Stiles’ hands, a conversation with Scott open.  Stiles tells Derek he’s pretty twice and that he hates him a lot three times, his eyes unfocused as he stares at Derek’s hair.

“It’d be better if we could all be boyfriends,” Stiles sulks.  He’s getting sleepy, but Derek has been extraordinarily nice to him, and Stiles has decided that he’s maybe not the worst.  If Scott wanted to date Derek, Stiles would be very sad and a little bit mad, but he would let him, because Derek is good at taking care of people, and Scott needs taking care of, sometimes.  “You gotta promise to take care of Scott, kay?”

“I think it’s time for you to sleep,” Derek says, untying Stiles’ shoes and slipping them off.  “Can you do that, Stiles?”

“Gotta promise, first,” Stiles insists.

“I’ll take just as much care of Scott as Scott wants me to,” Derek promises, which isn’t quite what Stiles was asking for, but he thinks probably still counts.  

“I’ma hold you to that,” Stiles promises, but he lets Derek tuck the sheets around him, and he dozes off, his eyelids too heavy to keep open any longer.

* * *

 

When Stiles wakes up, he can feel a headache already forming in his skull.  His mouth is dry and tastes like hell, and when he sits up, his stomach churns uncomfortably.  He doesn’t think he’s gonna puke - at least, not just from sitting up.  He feels nauseated, but not quite that bad.  He isn’t gonna hedge his bets with moving yet, even though he really, really needs to brush his teeth and drown his body with water.

He’s in the process of slowly cracking his eyelids open when he hears the quiet buzz of people talking.

  
“Are you sure he’s okay?” Scott asks.  Stiles recognizes that tone.  That is his fretting tone, even though it’s muffled by a stuffy nose.  Stiles immediately frowns; Scott shouldn’t be here, Scott should be back in his bed, resting.

“I made sure he drank lots of water,” another voice says nervously.   _Danny_ , Stiles assumes, until he finally drags his eyes the rest of the way open and sees familiar, swoopy hair and a tight t-shirt.  “He didn’t puke or pass out?  I texted Laura asking what to do, but she didn’t help very much.”  Derek holds up his phone, his ears pink, and Scott reads.

“Yeah, ‘don’t let your little boyfriend get drunk next time,’ isn’t great advice,” Scott agrees.  The words aren’t quite sinking into Stiles’ head, and he figures he must’ve misheard what Scott just said.  There’s no other explanation for how Scott could be so unsurprised and casual over Derek’s older sister calling him Derek’s boyfriend.

“I’m awake,” Stiles says, throat as dry as his mouth.  He winces.  “Water, though.  Would be good.  And Scott going back to bed, and Derek explaining his sister.”

“No one can explain Laura,” Derek says morosely.  “But I can get water.”

“I’m not leaving yet,” Scott informs Stiles as Derek grabs a cup from Stiles’ dresser and heads to the bathroom.  “We need to have a talk.”

“Can we do it when I don’t feel like shit?” Stiles asks.  “I don’t want lectures.”

“It’s not a lecture,” Scott insists.  “I don’t think you getting drunk was a good idea, and there was no reason for it at all.  I’m surprised no one got in trouble for just leaving the alcohol out with first years around, because there’s no way you should’ve been able to drink.  No one there was legal, but you and Jackson were especially very much not legal.  But that’s not why I’m here.”

“You’re here to talk too much,” Stiles says, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, resigned to the fact that he’s apparently up now, and needs to be functioning enough to have a conversation.  “That’s my job.”

Derek comes back with water, and Stiles chugs it down, glad for something to do with his hands.  He uses magic to make his mouth feel less like death, the usual faint taste of mint somehow overpowering.

“You said some stuff last night,” Derek says, and Stiles immediately knows that wherever this is going, it’s going to be worse than a lecture.  He remembers most of the night before, but things get a little bit blurry near the end, and his head hurts too much to try and piece through all of it.  

“I was drunk,” Stiles says petulantly, hoping it will cut the conversation short.  “I was drunk and I hate you both.”

“Yeah you said that a lot,” Derek agrees.  “And you apparently texted it to Scott.  Along with what you told me, too.  That we should all three be boyfriends.”

“Did you mean that, dude?” Scott asks before Stiles can reiterate how much he hates them both.  “Because, like.  Derek has been talking about you the whole year, it’s how we bonded.  Mutual crushes.  He was just too nervous to talk to you, and then you kept saying how much you hated him, even though you couldn’t stop staring at him.

“Derek Hale was never too nervous to talk to me,” Stiles says, as firmly as he can muster.  “I call bullshit.”

“You’re kinda abrasive?” Derek says hesitantly.  “Not usually in a bad way, but you aren’t exactly approachable.  I thought you were cute, and Scott couldn’t stop talking about how great you were.  You kind of glared, though.  A lot.”

“I thought you were stealing Scott,” Stiles says.  “You were both pretty and nerdy together.  I thought you were a dick.”

“And that he was pretty,” Scott says.  “You thought he was pretty, too.”

“Does any of this have a point?” Stiles asks, and Scott and Derek share a look that’s entirely too bemused for Stiles to be comfortable with.

“Derek and I wanna take you on a date,” Scott says.  “We can head into Fairview next weekend and grab something to eat.  You don’t have to be madly in love with Derek.  Or me!  But Derek and I have been talking about it for a while, and last night you said exactly what we’ve been thinking about for a while, even though you were drunk at the time, and… just give it a chance?  For me?”

Stiles looks back and forth between the two of them.  Scott is the model of earnestness, and Stiles hates him a little bit.  But Derek looks nervous, his hair mussed and sleepy and his lip between his teeth, and Stiles is weak, okay.  He’s weak for being wanted and he’s weak for pretty boys with pretty eyes, one of which rose from his deathbed to talk to Stiles (and will probably get him sick) and one of which must’ve stayed in Stiles’ room all night to make sure he was okay.

“Fine,” Stiles grouses.  “I’ll go on a date with you.  But no magizoology talk,  _at all_.”

“Deal,” Scott says, beaming at him with his bright red nose and his tired eyes.  “Then I’m gonna go back to sleep.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Stiles says.  “Go be sick.  But when you’re better, I expect to be  _wooed_.  There’d better be some serious wooing going on.”

“There will be,” Derek promises.

* * *

 

Later on, Stiles has all sorts of questions and complaints, saying that three people dating each other isn’t a thing, and that it can’t possibly work.  It’s definitely not conventional, and while Stiles is not conventional, never has been, he finds it hard to believe that Derek and Scott are both totally on board with going out on a limb like this.  He voices his concerns, but Scott doesn’t even seem worried, reassuring him that they’ll figure it out as they go.  Stiles suspects he has a Plan of some kind, written slowly and carefully and neatly out on paper in list form.  Scott always has a plan.

Stiles is nervous, though, more than anything, because this seems way too good to be true.  The idea of him dating both of them means that, since they were both probably going to date each other anyway, he’s at least not going to be left totally out of the loop.  And they both seem really genuine about wanting to date him, and it makes it a little bit easier to admit to himself that it’s not just Scott that he wants to hold hands with and kiss.

They go out to dinner, and Scott pays.  Stiles thinks it’s gonna suck a lot, but he should’ve known better.  He can’t not have fun when Scott’s around, and it turns out that Derek can snark back just as well as Stiles can.  They’re going to go on another date, this time planned by Derek, and Stiles finds himself actually looking forward to it (though he reiterates the no magizoology rule).

He’s not ready yet to admit that Derek’s house (and Derek, by implication) isn’t boring, or that Derek is funny in a surprisingly subtle kind of way or that Stiles really likes how it feels when Derek wraps his arm around Stiles’ shoulder.  He might not ever admit that,  _if_  this thing keeps going.  

But Scott and Derek keep giving him the warmest smiles, and the amount of tummy fluttering that is going on in Stiles’ body has reached astronomical levels.

He thinks ‘if’ is starting to pretty solidly become ‘when’.

**Author's Note:**

> On tumblr [here](sleepy-skittles.tumblr.com).


End file.
